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Mara Jordayne
Mara Jordayne is the natural-born daughter of Lisele Jordayne. Legitimized in 388 AC, she is second in line to House Jordayne. She currently serves as Second Spear of the Tor and commands the Jordaynes' Army of the Weldry. Appearance Mara is short, slim but obviously strong, and dark-skinned. She has dark, wavy hair that falls down to her shoulders. Her eyes, perched above a small bulb nose covered in the signature Santagar freckles, are startlingly blue, and her bright white teeth are set in a slight crossbite. Outside of battle, she favors a tight, dull-green outfit composed of many strands of breathable cloth elaborately wrapped about her (almost like a mummy's wrap). She wears simple gold bands--two on her left wrist and three on her right--and her hair is always tied up in a utilitarian bun, with a jade pin stuck through it. History Mara Sand was born 374 AC to Lisele Jordayne, firstborn daughter and heir of Lord Kasell Jordayne. Two days after her birth, her mother married her betrothed, Owyn Vaith, heir to House Vaith, to solidify an alliance between the two houses. Lisele bore four trueborn sons over the next four years, and in spite of her husband’s subtle protests, she ensured that her bastard was given the same training as if she were one of them. Mara, however, would be given none of the same advantages: Lisele boarded her in the servants’ quarters at the Tor, and the day Mara turned five, ordered that she be denied all sustenance. The girl quickly learned how to move unseen through crowded kitchens, and to break into carefully kept larders. It was, for her, a matter of life and death. From this harsh upbringing, Mara matured faster than any highborn child would, and she used this to her advantage. She found that the servants’ children with whom she lived were better fed than she, and she used her cunning and physical cruelty (both of which were naturally inherited from and carefully cultivated by her mother) to subjugate them and levy taxes of food from all but the biggest of them. As soon as Lisele deemed her sufficiently physically fit, Mara was taught to fight, not only with the usual Dornish spear and bow, but also with the fauchard, the traditional weapon of House Jordayne. She excelled in her studies, and became the unattainable standard of martial prowess her younger brothers sought to overtake. With the first budding of Mara’s breasts, Lisele found a new way to harden the girl to the world around her. She paid the servants of visiting lords to assault her daughter, but Mara used the skills she had long harnessed with the servants’ children to prevail: it was she who tied down and raped her hired enemies, using little blades and clever poisons on one after another until she had made an art of methodically and brutally transforming an arrogant foe into a cowering pawn. The expected time for Mara’s blooming came and went, but without the anticipated event. A year and a half passed before the Maester confirmed the infertility she had already suspected. With this news came an unexpected change in her fortunes, for the next morning Lisele came to her and legitimized her as Mara Jordayne, her firstborn and her heir. Mara was immediately brought into a new world of family whom Lisele had previously forbidden to interact with her. One of these was her mother’s younger brother, Yorick Jordayne, who took it upon himself to tame the wild beast his sister had created and train her into a proper heir to House Jordayne. Serving as a sort of squire to Yorick, Mara took part in the Third Targaryen Rebellion, fighting alongside the Jordayne forces. In the subsequent Sand King Rebellion, Mara’s surrogate father took her and her brother, Nolsyn Jordayne to fight Vaeron Sand. There, Mara proved her strategic acumen, rallying her brother and a small troop of Vaith forces after Owyn’s death to escape the Drinkwaters. Mara led this band across Dorne to Vaith, where they found brief respite until the Sand King's forces attacked the fortress and claimed it for their own. Mara escaped to Godsgrace, but Nolsyn was left imprisoned. When the Martells sent their armies to help the Vaiths recapture the fortress, Mara joined them, and fought to rescue her brother. After the Martell victory, the Jordayne siblings returned home to the Tor, where Mara assumed ever more martial responsibility until her mother named her Second Spear of the Tor and commander of the castle's garrison. She served faithfully in this role until 399 AC, when Prince Deziel called for his bannermen to support him against the rebel Justyn Dayne, at which point Mara passed her command to another of her mother's bastards and rode for Skyreach with her uncle and her brother, Olleron Jordayne. Category:Mara Jordayne Category:House Jordayne Category:Dornish Category:Salty Dornish